The subject matter described herein relates generally to wind turbines and, more particularly, to an alignment tool for use with a wind turbine inspection tool.
At least some known wind turbine towers include a nacelle fixed atop a tower. The nacelle includes a rotor assembly coupled to a generator through a shaft. In known rotor assemblies, a plurality of blades extend from a rotor. The blades are oriented such that wind passing over the blades turns the rotor and rotates the shaft, thereby driving the generator to generate electricity.
Because many known wind turbines provide electrical power to utility grids, at least some wind turbines have larger components (e.g., rotors in excess of thirty-meters in diameter) that facilitate supplying greater quantities of electrical power. However, the larger components are often subjected to increased loads (e.g., asymmetric loads) that result from wind shears, yaw misalignment, and/or turbulence, and the increased loads have been known to contribute to significant fatigue cycles on the gearbox assembly and/or other components of the wind turbine.
At least some known wind turbines include an electric generator and a gearbox each positioned within the nacelle. The electric generator is coupled to the gearbox with a high speed shaft. At least some known gearbox assemblies include a ring gear assembly that engages a gear assembly to facilitate transferring rotational energy from a low speed rotor shaft to a high speed shaft that rotatably drives the generator to facilitate producing electrical power. Over time, the ring gear assembly may become worn. As the ring gear assembly becomes worn, the gearbox assembly becomes less effective in transferring rotational energy to the generator. In at least some known wind turbines, visual inspection of the interior of the gearbox is used to find large defects such as missing sections of the gear teeth, however, the distance between the gearbox assembly and the generator is such that access to the ring gear to perform the interior inspection is limited. As such, visual inspection of the interior of the ring gear is time-consuming and causes increased downtime and expense to perform the inspection.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide a system and method capable of monitoring the gearbox assembly that does not require visual inspection of the interior of the ring gear assembly.